


Ah Alem

by CookieMonstersRUs



Category: Daredevil (TV), Rise of the Ieta, The Alem Books
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alem AU, But we don't talk about that here, Cheesy, Fluff, Foggy Nelson Is a Good Bro, Gods, Love Confessions, M/M, Magic, Matt probably has an existential crisis over religion, POV Foggy Nelson, Riort!Foggy, Vibrem!Matt, also Karen is somewhere in the far background, but no actual violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:27:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23770804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CookieMonstersRUs/pseuds/CookieMonstersRUs
Summary: Just finished reading Rise of the Ieta from The Alem Books and realized Matt's totally a Vibrem with being able to "see" and all that.AKA the one where Foggy's an Alem and he thinks Matt's an Alem too, but he'd totally know, right? Right?
Relationships: Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Kudos: 15





	Ah Alem

**Author's Note:**

> Based on The Alem Books by C.Q.Cook where there are gods and a race of magical beings called Alem. Alem have seven powers: Riorts (nearly impenetrable skin and amazing fighting abilities,) Anche (shapeshifters,) Toim (teleporters,) Irahns (think Avatar: the Last Airbender,) Yadalms (can create anything with clap of the hand,) Vibrem (hyper senses,) and Oraces (can see the future.)
> 
> In this AU most superheroes are actually Alem or demigods of sorts. Also, Foggy is a Riort, but he's not really the fight-type and he much prefers the human world. Matt is a Vibrem because (duh) he has hyper senses and is able to see while being legally blind, but Matt doesn't know he's Alem because his dad died when he was young. Also his mom was a Vibrem but we also don't know anything about her.

Like most New Yorkers, Foggy’s a half-breed. Specifically, half-human, half-Alem. His mom, Rosalind, bless her heart decided to marry a human, his dad, against the wishes of her well-reasoned Riort family. But that was okay, soon after Ros married Eddie, his Auntie G decided to run away with an Orace girl, so all hell broke loose in the Sharpe household.

Like most, half-Alem boys growing up in New York City, Foggy gets into a lot of fights. Mostly with his sisters, both younger and older, and all the other half-Alem kids in the Hell’s Kitchen area. Most of his sisters don’t get powers, although Stacy swears on their grandmothers grave that she could take you in a fight (she can’t.) Foggy didn’t think he was a Riort at all until he was invited to one of the Alem boarding schools to learn his powers. His mother and father fight for weeks when they get the news. His youngest sister, Gretchen, cries every night. Stacy and Linda bet over whether or not Foggy is gonna be homeschooled or shipped off to Wymo.

In the end, Foggy is enrolled to the Xie Academy, but under the threat that he must come home every Sunday for dinner or her mother will get the Great Goddess Kionii herself to smack some sense into him. 

He goes to school. He learns to throw a punch and take a kick to the gut. Foggy’s not much of a fighter, which makes him a shitty Riort, but he’s good at throwing knives and he makes friends with the other Alem kids. He learns about Alem history and takes Spanish for four years. Foggy has always known that he was gonna run back to the human world after he graduated. (If he was honest with himself, everyone at school knew he was going back to New York, even the lunch ladies and janitors.) That’s okay though, more Alem are starting to integrate with human society more. Foggy had an inkling there’d be a cultural shift sometime in his lifetime if Riorts like Captain America and half-Yadalms like Tony Stark kept flashing their powers all over the place. When that happened, there was gonna need to be laws and regulations and all sorts of loopholes to make everything worked and Foggy wants to be apart of it, which gets him on the whole lawyer thing.

When he graduates high school, he decides to go to a human college. Most Alem don’t need college to get good jobs in the Alem community, but you definitely needed credentials if you want to go anywhere in the human world. Foggy likes to think it’s his test scores that get him into Columbia (they certainly go a long way,) but it’s his Alem status that really gets the administration horny because there’s nothing quite like poaching a rare breed to be a part of your Alumni. Foggy doesn’t mind too much because he also gets an awesome scholarship and so he’ll only be in debt for half his life instead of the entirety of it.

And then he gets his roommate and holy fuck this kid is hot. For a second he thinks the guy, Matt Murdock, is a child of Vestus, god of love, but no, he’s just incredibly smoking and insanely smart and perhaps the coolest person Foggy’s ever met. Matt’s human, Foggy can tell right away, and blind (because that’s not too hard to spot either,) but they’re already best friends within the first ten minutes. College is gonna be great!

* * *

College is not great and Foggy considers dropping out and becoming a tour guide in the Alem city of Cturis once or twice, because fuuuck. 

He doesn’t leave of course. Matt always gives him this smile and reminds Foggy of what they’re working towards. Plus, Matt does a little pout whenever Foggy threatens to run away and he’s never been more grateful that Matt’s not an Alem, and a Vibrem at that, because if he was, he’d totally hear how fast Foggy’s heart beat when Matt did that little pout. 

Classes continue on, Matt and Foggy are best friends, and Foggy pretends he’s okay with everything staying the way they are.

* * *

Foggy starts thinking Matt’s an Alem halfway through sophomore year. It really shouldn’t have taken him that long because he spent all his life around other Alem, but Foggy’s never met another Alem that was trying to be human (like he was trying) before. 

It’s the little things. Matt’s sensitivity to sound, his complete disdain for laundry day, how he always knew when Foggy had gotten laid, and that one time he caught a frisbee even though he’s fucking blind. That last one is really what clued him in because Matt had such a sour look on his face, like he had just exposed himself to the rest of the world. At first Foggy thinks he might’ve been an Anchē, because some shapeshifters were weird like that, but Matt’s propensity for silk sheets and soft clothing clue him into the idea that Matt might be a Vibrem after all. They have heightened senses and it isn’t unheard of for a legally blind Vibrem to be able to “see” or a deaf Vibrem to “hear.”

But because Foggy’s such a huge fucking wimp, he doesn’t ask Matt about it outright. Instead he starts dropping hints, talking about, “My family went to Cturis last weekend for the Solstice,” which every Alem has been to and “I could go for some dwawa right now,” which every Alem has eaten.

But Matt’s response, if ever had any, is always a “Hmm?” and a wrinkled nose. 

Foggy keeps it up for a couple of months, mentioning different gods or Alem things that Matt should know about, like Manjja or Rahdí, but Matt never seems to get it. And so Foggy learns that his roommate is in fact, not an Alem, but a human after all.

Oh well.

* * *

Except, Foggy might have spoken too soon. If, after all, five years can be considered “too soon.” Foggy wishes he’d pestered Matt some more about it in college, because they wouldn’t be where they were now:

With Matt bleeding out in his living room.

* * *

Forgetting the whole Daredevil, vigilante justice, you’ve been lying to me for years, bullshit, Foggy is going to strangle Matt for thinking he could take on a pack of monsters without any Alem weapons. Matt is wrapped up in bandages and about three blankets, sleeping on his couch because Claire gave him the good stuff.

To confirm Matt really is Alem, Foggy takes his hand in his and lets his magic tangle with whatever Matt is made up of while he’s asleep and is met with the same Alem magic that Foggy has running through his veins. Foggy could’ve done this at any point in their friendship, he knows this, could’ve taken Matt’s hand in his while they were stupid and drunk to see if they were both magic, but it always felt like an invasion of privacy. It’s intimate, after all, to share magic between Alem. But it confirms all of Foggy’s worst fears and biggest hopes: Matt is Alem. Matt is most probably a Vibrem. 

Foggy keeps a stash of zessablossom nectar in case of emergencies and so he gives it to Matt because it’ll heal him much faster than any human medicine. Plus, since he is Alem, he won’t die from taking it. Then he spends the rest of the night sitting beside Matt’s concussed form, wondering where it had all gone wrong and if it could ever be okay.

* * *

They fight the next couple days. It’s loud, it’s frustrating, and it’s exhausting. Foggy doesn’t understand why Matt hid this from him. Matt doesn’t know what an Alem is and thinks Foggy is crazy. Foggy thinks Matt’s insane for endangering himself by being a vigilante as a Vibrem. Matt doesn’t know what a Vibrem is. Foggy insists that if Matt was a Riort, maybe he’d get it, because all Riorts (him included) can be a little stupid about justice. Matt doesn’t know what a Riort is. Foggy tells him he’s a Riort. Matt doesn’t believe him.

Foggy get a knife and Matt tries to stop him. Foggy tries to slice his palm open and Matt shouts at him to stop, but it’s okay because Foggy’s a Riort and human knives are useless on him. Matt doesn’t stop staring at Foggy’s hand, but still doesn’t quite believe him until Foggy goads him into trying to cut him himself, which Matt reluctantly tries (only a paper cuts worth,) but can’t seem to get Foggy to bleed. 

There’s a lot more to be discussed after that because Matt, Foggy realizes, has spent his entire life thinking he was human and nothing else. Foggy plans on educating him.

He’s still mad about all the other bullshit Matt got himself into, but at least there are a couple of secrets revealed between the two of them. 

* * *

Foggy takes him to his old high school to meet with one of the Vibrem teachers. Foggy didn’t know Mr. Pohm personally, but he had a Vibrem friend who thought he was Alem Jesus. Foggy only stays for the first hour because it’s mostly Matt asking questions and wondering why he never got asked to come to school here. Apparently, the nuns at the orphanage burned all their letters and when Principal Xie tried to turn up, was quickly deferred because Matt had been “given up.” In those days, it was pretty easy for human-raised Alem to slip through the cracks. Legislation to keep track of the Alem population was only enacted in 2005. 

Pohm and Matt talk a lot about meditation and other boring stuff. Foggy excuses himself and decides to roam the school grounds for the next couple of hours and catch up with any of his old teachers that are still here. When he gets back, Matt seems a lot more settled with himself and looks like he might actually be right in the head for once. Pohm and Matt are going to meet up some more during the summer session, but he suggests that Matt get into contact with a couple of other teachers if he really wants to learn more.

Matt hugs him when they get back to his place, clings to him really. Mutters something about can’t lose you and thank you, Foggy. They both pretend that Matt’s not crying in his shoulders, and that Foggy’s not getting misty-eyed either, but Foggy’s incredibly thankful for the moment because it means that no matter what, they’re still Nelson and Murdock.

* * *

Matt keeps fighting. Foggy tried to talk him out of it, really wants to talk him out of it, but Matt’s only getting better with his Vibrem lessons and they both (Foggy begrudgingly) know that Hell’s Kitchen is a fucking nightmare so Matt keeps going out as Daredevil. Foggy insists on getting him some Alem weapons and teaching him how to fight different Alem types because sooner or later Matt was going to run into an Alem-gone-bad and Foggy isn’t going to be the reason Matt died. 

Fighting with Matt is funny business. Foggy isn’t a fighter by temperament, but is one by nature. Riorts instinctively know how to fight, some better than others. Matt’s hungry for the fight and skilled in it too. (Foggy should’ve known that Matt was Alem from the moment he found out he was a Murdock. His mom had spent his early childhood shouting “Go half-breed, go!” at the TV broadcasting the Murdock ring. Murdock was a half-Riort and that was the only reason he was allowed to fight with humans; he could fight well, but he’d also bleed. Matt’s mom, Foggy discovered later on after some research, was a Vibrem from Cturis.) When they’re in the ring together, it’s an even match. Matt mostly wins because he’s a flexible ninja and Foggy can’t help getting distracted by his ass in those shorts, but Foggy can just as easily pin Matt to the ground and keep him there. (Neither talk about how red their faces become after moments like this, but it happens and it happens enough times that Foggy second guesses himself in the ring.)

Foggy’s not okay with Matt being Daredevil, but he loves him and so he’ll do whatever he can to keep Matt safe (even if he can’t keep Matt safe from himself.)

* * *

A couple months later, Foggy takes Matt to Cturis for the first time. Foggy’s been to Cturis twice a year since he was eleven, for the Equinox celebrations since they’re cheaper than the Solstice ones. It’s late April, so this is a special occasion all on its own, and spring is hedging into summer, but it’s almost always full bloom here on the island. Cherry blossoms and wisterias bloom around them. Even though Cturis is the most populated Alem city, it somehow manages to stay quiet and calm most days of the years, probably out of respect for the Vibrem of the city and the more sensitive Anchē. For two New York boys, it’s a little disconcerting to be in a place so big without any chaos or New York traffic. But Matt loves it. His eyes are so bright and wide behind the red glasses, and there’s a goofy grin on his cheeks that Matt hasn’t seen in ages.

“I’m gonna take you to get some dwawa,” Foggy announces.

Matt’s had dwawas before because his mother knows how to cook, but Foggy knows they’re better on the island. Matt likes dwawa and he’s grinning. “Okay.”

“And then we’ll got to the Hijjoi.” Foggy’s told him about the art museum before and normally I’d be arbitrary for a blind guy to go see some art, but there are plenty of exhibits for people with touch sensitivity.

Matt’s getting excited. “Okay.”

“And, if we have enough time, we’ll take a trolley up to the fighting grounds,” which is where Riorts on the island can practice their moves. Foggy wouldn’t mind getting sweaty, “And we can do a little sparring.”

“God,” Matt breathes (And oh boy, had the Catholic religion vs existence of Alem gods been a tough conversation,) “It’s amazing here. I love it.”

It just slips out, “I love you.” Then he freezes because oh fuck that is not what he wanted to say. Foggy was planning to take that secret to his grave (or wait until Matt was truly settled in his powers or out of the fighting ring.) “Uh—I mean—ah—“

Matt’s face is so bright. He thought taking him to Cturis was the highlight of his life. Apparently Foggy making a fool of himself is the true joy to the world. But, you see, Matt’s taking his hand in his—probably to let him down gently—and is smiling and saying, “I love you too.”

His voice is so soft and sweet that it takes Foggy a long moment to understand what he said. “You do?”

Matt laughs, “Foggy, of course I love you. You had me at hello.”

Foggy’s face hurts from the power of the smile that practically erupts from his face, but that’s okay because Matt’s kissing it better and holy shit Matt’s kissing him. 

It’s honestly the best day ever.

**Author's Note:**

> THANKS FOR THE READ!!! :D   
> Might do another chapter where Foggy fucks Matt into the mattress but we'll see...
> 
> Based on The Alem Books by C.Q.Cook where there are gods and a race of magical beings called Alem. Alem have seven powers: Riorts (nearly impenetrable skin and amazing fighting abilities,) Anche (shapeshifters,) Toim (teleporters,) Irahns (think Avatar: the Last Airbender,) Yadalms (can create anything with clap of the hand,) Vibrem (hyper senses,) and Oraces (can see the future.)
> 
> In this AU most superheroes are actually Alem or demigods of sorts. Also, Foggy is a Riort, but he's not really the fight-type and he much prefers the human world. Matt is a Vibrem because (duh) he has hyper senses and is able to see while being legally blind, but Matt doesn't know he's Alem because his dad died when he was young. Also his mom was a Vibrem but we also don't know anything about her.


End file.
